When it comes to the current economy many people are concerned about their investments because of the financial crisis. What they are worried about is if they are going to end up losing all of their hard earned money that is already in the stock market or if they are going to be able to recoup their losses. Another major concern that people have is what kind of portfolio they should build during the financial crisis, this is also known as crisis investment portfolios. The reason that it is called this is because this type of portfolio is usually only used during a financial crisis because of how unstable the market is. When it comes to crisis investing people want to ensure that they are going to make safe investments so that they don't risk more than they actually have to, in fact they actually want to be able to make money on their investments.

Here is a look at the best places to invest your money for building a crisis investment portfolio.

Number one:
Money markets. These are a great place to invest your money during the times of a financial crisis because they are already insured against the loss of funds. Not to mention the fact that the government just recently decided to extend protections for all money market funds. But even though the government has recently passed this law it does not mean that all the funds are currently protected, in fact there are numerous funds that are not protected yet/ So what you need to do is to check on each individual fund that you plan on investing in or that you are currently invested in to see if it is protected. The best place to do this is by reading the prospectus or by contacting the fund directly. You are also going to want to find out if the fund is insured against loss, who is it insured by and how much the account is insured for.

Number two:
Banks. This is another great place to invest your money because of the fact that the banks are all supposed to be insured by the government. In fact each your bank accounts are insured for up to $100,000 by the FDIC. But keep in mind that this amount is the total individual coverage that you can get, so if you have more than one bank account at the same bank you are going to want to ensure that they do not total more than $100,000. If the money totals more than that you might want to think about investing it elsewhere so that it is protected. Also if you use a small unknown bank you want to double check with them that they are in fact FDIC insured

Number three:
Stocks. Most people will tell you to stay far away from stocks because of how crazy the stock market is, especially right now. But the thing that you need to remember is that you never know if your stocks are going to go up or down, not to mention that some investors will give you advice on which stocks to invest in because they atre usually recession proof. With how crazy the stock market is many people are worried about using investment firms because of the fear that they are going to go out of business and all of their money will be lost. The good news is that if you are currently using a brokerage firm to invest in the stock market your money is protected. The reason for this is that by law the firm cannot use your money for the business's costs or debt. And even if they go bankrupt your funds are still protected and the funds in each account are generally insured for up to half a million dollars.

Number four:
IRAs, retirement accounts, and pensions. With how bad the current financial is many people have actually lost sight of the fact that their retirement funds can be at risk. This is especially true if you have these funds invested in the stock market. But what you need to know is that by spreading out where you have your retirement funds invested you can greatly reduce the risk that is associated with the stock market currently. In fact some of your safer aspects will be to invest in government bonds or commodities.

Now that you know what kinds of accounts you should invest in during a crisis it is going to be helpful to know what to do when you are investing. The reason for this is that if you don't keep certain things in mind when investing during a crisis you are going to end up losing money rather than making a return on your investments. Here are some tips that you can follow when it comes to crisis investing.

Tip one:
One thing that you can do is sit back and let your investments stay where they are, basically leave them in the stock market. But before you decide for sure what to do you are going to want to take a close look at the stock market. When looking at the stock market you are going to want to look and see if the market is near its bottom or if it is still going to fall a lot. If the market is still going to fall further selling now gives you the chance to cut your losses somewhat and still be able to get back in after the market has stopped falling. But if the market is near the bottom and you sell now you are only going to ensure that you suffer losses.

Tip two:
If you are currently invested in the stock market you might want to consider reallocating your stocks to some countercyclical stocks that run opposite the stock market. Or you can move your money into stocks that are going to grow consistently no matter what the stock market is doing. This is also great advice for people who are just now entering the stock market.

Tip three:
One thing that most people tend to do during the crisis is that they sell their stocks and other volatile investments in favor of safer investments such as precious metals, cash, government securities, and insured bank deposits. But what you need to be aware of is that even investing in these so called safe investments presents some type of risk. For the most part this risk is because of how many people have already made that move. The fact that a lot of people have made this move means that the bidding price of the safe investments has gone up and the bidding price of stocks has actually gone down. You also need to keep in mind is that as soon as things calm down the reverse is going to happen, so you are going to need to make sure that you time the market so that you avoid suffering any losses with this safe plan.

Tip four:
If you want to make some substantial returns on your investments you are still going to want to stick with the higher risk investments. The reason for this is that the higher risk investments still means potential rewards, at the same time a down market means that you have an opportunity to buy these high risk investments at a really low price. But if you are going this route, no matter what the current economy is you are going to want to make sure that you only invest money that you can afford to lose because you just never know what is going to happen in the stock market.

Tip five:
Because of how unstable today's market is if you are investing your money in any type of bank you are going to want to make sure that the bank that you are investing in is financially sound. Basically what this means is you are going to want to avoid banks that are strictly online banks. Some of the ones to avoid would be E-Trade Financial, Countrywide Financial, and America Home Mortgage. You also want to make sure that when you are placing your money in banks that you are using a bank that has adequate capital. You want to make sure that they have enough money and assets to cover their debt. With banks you are going to want to make sure that you choose one that has equity to assets ratio of at least 6% but if you can find one that has a higher ratio.

Tip six:
But most importantly you are going to want to make sure that you spread out your investments over a wide area. No matter how cheap a stock looks or how good of a price you can get for a stock you want to make sure that you don't put all of your eggs into one basket. The reason for this is that if something does go wrong you could lose everything that you had. Plus by diversifying your portfolio you have a better chance of making a decent return on your investments.